Firelands Raid Not Coming in Patch 4.1

According to a post over at Eurogamer.net it seems Blizzard has decided to release patches more often and Firelands will not be in 4.1. Blizzard hasn't said anything official on this but the good news is that they want to push new features sooner, rather than waiting for huge content patches like we are currently used to.

Blizzard has told Eurogamer that the Firelands raid - the next tier of endgame raiding progression for the MMO - will not appear in the next patch, 4.1, as it had previously planned.

In an interview at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, lead producer J. Allen Brack said that players were not sufficiently advanced through the raid content that shipped with third expansion Cataclysm in December to handle the challenge of Firelands. He also suggested that Blizzard was thinking of creating "smaller" content patches for World of Warcraft.

"We feel like the player base isn't really ready for the next raid yet," he said. "And that led to some changes where Firelands is now actually going to be in 4.2."

"Our plan is to package... features into smaller content updates and to release them as soon as possible, rather than wait and release larger updates more infrequently," Blizzard added in a statement.

Firelands is a raid encounter on the Elemental Plane of Fire in which players will once again face Ragnaros, a boss made famous by the Molten Core raid in "classic" WOW. At its BlizzCon fan convention last year, Blizzard said that Firelands would appear in patch 4.1.

Patch 4.1 will now offer "a dungeon revamp, as opposed to an entirely new tier of content with an entirely new raid," Brack said. It will add two new Heroic dungeons for five level 85 players: new versions of the troll dungeons Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub, previously small raid encounters for 10 players or more at lower levels.

The increased difficulty of raiding and Heroic dungeons in Cataclysm has come as a shock to the WOW community after the less challenging raid content in Lich King. Brack says it was a "conscious decision".

"One of our goals before Cataclysm was to make it a little bit harder than for Lich King," he said. "We feel like players were really able to be very successful very quickly and looking back, the way we handled the itemisation, we feel like we've learned some lessons from.

"In terms of whether it's the right difficulty, that's something that we evaluate on a pretty regular basis. Things have happened and we'll do tweaks and things to make things easier," he said. Asked if he was confident Blizzard had pitched raid difficulty right, Brack laughed, "Never. We're never confident... But so far we think we made the right decision."

The decision to move Firelands to 4.2 was also motivated by a desire to move away from the "monolithic" content patches World of Warcraft has received recently, towards smaller updates, Brack said.

"Tom and I actually had a talk in January which was like, you know, our patches are getting so huge and so monolithic compared to the old days when you could just say, 'Hey, we're adding weather to these zones, go have fun.' And that was cool. Or, 'Hey, here's this one regular five-person dungeon. Great, go have fun.'"

"And now we're talking about always doing a raid, always doing a dungeon, always doing some single-player quest content, always doing some kind of daily quest hub with every single patch. And actually that in combination with the difficulty is sort of what led to doing 4.1 as just a dungeon revamp, as opposed to an entirely new tier of content with an entirely new raid.

"That's definitely something we're talking about - hey, it doesn't always have to be this huge monolith. It can be something just smaller."

Brack said that Blizzard was ready to listen to feedback. "I'm sure there'll be some grousing about the 4.1 decision, and if it ends up being the wrong decision, then we won't do it again, right? That's one of the nice things. We'll learn from this and make the right decision in 4.2."

After the interview, Blizzard gave Eurogamer the following statement about the decision to remove Firelands from patch 4.1.

"One of our long-standing development goals is to release regular content updates for the community to enjoy. These updates are generally focused on introducing specific content, like a new raid or new gameplay features.

"Our plan is to package these features into smaller content updates and to release them as soon as possible, rather than wait and release larger updates more infrequently.

"The previously announced Firelands raid will be part of content update 4.2 which should come soon after 4.1.

"Our flexible approach to content updates allows us to release content like Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub so that players will have new challenges to overcome (and loot to collect) until we're ready to unleash the Firelands.

"Our previous experience with content updates informed this decision. We feel like Call of the Crusade was released while raiders were still busy with Ulduar, which stamped out Ulduar raiding. We don't feel that Cataclysm needs a new raid tier just yet.

"Releasing an epic raid dungeon before its time would, in the words of Ragnaros himself, be 'too soon!'"

Brack indicated that patch 4.1 is roughly two months away. "We've started to put a build up on the PTR so that players can take a look at it. Usually we're on the PTR for six to eight-ish weeks, plus or minus four weeks I would say. So that's probably where we are in terms of the development of 4.1."

Comments

Comment by Monday

Well, this gives me time to raid the current content. I've not had time to gear lately )=

Comment by dubplate

on 2011-03-03T19:11:40-06:00

4.2 better come pretty damn quick after 4.1 then.

Comment by neuroxin

on 2011-03-03T19:12:50-06:00

Yes. Good call, Blizz! They do learn!

Comment by Cuphat

on 2011-03-03T19:13:54-06:00

I'm glad. 1.x went all the way to 1.12 and only lasted about a month longer than 3.x, which only went to 3.3. They don't need an entire new raiding tier to release a content patch, so long as they don't drag out the tiers too long.

Comment by Adamsm

on 2011-03-03T19:15:19-06:00

4.2 better come pretty damn quick after 4.1 then.

Well seeing as 4.1 is still a few months off....

Beyond that cool; give us the new Heroic dungeons to cut our teeth in, let a few more guilds get the current content down, or at least not constant wipe fests, and bring out the Firelands when it's good and ready.

Comment by Contay

on 2011-03-03T19:16:42-06:00

I think that this could be a good thing to do in the long run. More frequent updates = no 3-4 month lulls between huge content patches. But as the article says, 4.1 is two months away? That's... what, 5 months since game launch for a major content patch?

Uhhh.

I will be straightforward. My guild in WotLK died due to the 5 months it spent having to clear and re-clear Naxxramas until our brains rotted. By the time Ulduar rolled out, it was pretty much too late to save the guild; repetitive, non-fresh content killed our desire to play the game. If Blizzard wants to do more frequent content patches that are smaller? Great! But they should have had 4.1 out last week instead of 6-8 weeks from now if this is supposed to be their new philosophy because the 2 raids out now are starting to wear out their welcome for quite a few people.

And if they aren't now for a lot of people, it certainly will be when 4.2 finally rolls out. :I

TL;DR: yes, this is a great idea. But it's already been a while since game launch. This 2-heroic instance launch should've been out sooner than later.

Comment by Orranis

on 2011-03-03T19:18:02-06:00

Good.

Comment by Ashelia

on 2011-03-03T19:22:54-06:00

This makes sense, honestly, guilds have been having huge issues with the heroic content out thus far...

I mean, on one hand it does suck for the guilds that work hard and end up done--I experienced this in WotLK with Heroic Lich King/Halcyon. It was so boring I took a break from the game after it was on farm in May. But on the other hand, so many people aren't seeing this content and need more time. :/

Comment by mandibleclaw

on 2011-03-03T19:39:08-06:00

thumbs very high up for blizzard and I'm happy about the decision... fireland was way too soon and my guild hasnt experienced the new content of raiding entirely many guilds in fact didn't and us "the not on the game 22 of 24 hours" can't seem to advance on this difficulty like dedicated players, which I respect their dedication btw. I just want time to clear things and not have my gear obsolete the next day. Im happy.

Comment by Eiknarf

on 2011-03-03T19:50:25-06:00

Great Idea! Casuals are just as important as the elites.

Comment by brainstew0

on 2011-03-03T19:59:21-06:00

I agree as well with the whole guilds aren't ready for current heroics. In my guild, people are still getting geared for the heroics available right now and even then, are struggling to complete them all. We barely discuss doing Cata raids and if so, the "easier" ones like BH. LoL. Plus, didn't Blizzard just modify the difficulty in heroics/raids in the last patch?

Comment by moigan

on 2011-03-03T20:04:40-06:00

Good.

I actually could not be happier about this - when I heard about Patch 4.1 being put up on the PTR, I was worried this would mean that my Guild would not be anywhere near done with Cataclysm Tier 1 before Tier 2 came out, and we would have to move onto the Firelands before finishing with Blackwing Descent, Bastion of Twilight and Throne of the Four Winds - hearing that it's 2 months before Patch 4.1 hits AND that we won't be seeing the Firelands in that patch gives my Guild the time it NEEDS to finish this tier. We're currently sitting on 7/12 and are expecting a hit after having to basically rebuild our team, so this is a welcome post.

I hope it's confirmed soon.

Comment by Hezkezl

on 2011-03-03T20:07:02-06:00

I was looking forward to the new questing hub :(

Comment by Timanous

on 2011-03-03T20:56:40-06:00

This is an interesting approach.

I really hope it works out to the benefit of the community since the immense level of complaining is about to flow freely.

Comment by Monday

on 2011-03-03T21:08:51-06:00

I really hope it works out to the benefit of the community since the immense level of complaining is about to flow freely.

Complaining always flows freely.

Comment by Timanous

on 2011-03-03T21:12:11-06:00

Complaining always flows freely.

Valid point, but the volume of "Told you so" will probably louder than normal, no?

Comment by Interest

on 2011-03-03T21:58:54-06:00

"Our plan is to package... features into smaller content updates and to release them as soon as possible, rather than wait and release larger updates more infrequently," Blizzard added in a statement.

Good. They understood the primary issue of WoW.

I am glad for this change of pace then, even if we do get raiding content "later" (fyi it'll probably come out at the target time new raiding content comes out anyways!)

Well seeing as 4.1 is still a few months off....

To be honest I doubt it. I'd give it a month and a half tops, considering PTR is up.

Comment by Titan

on 2011-03-03T22:26:20-06:00

Does this mean no Hyjal dailies in 4.1? If so, Q_Q.

Comment by GVHB

on 2011-03-03T22:29:36-06:00

Well seeing as 4.1 is still a few months off....

To be honest I doubt it. I'd give it a month and a half tops, considering PTR is up.

The article says that patch 4.1 is two months away but the PTR for patch 4.2 will be released very soon after the release of patch 4.1 in live. Seeing that they want to have big patch of content in PTR for at least 6 weeks it means that 4.2 is more or less 3 months away.

Comment by Interest

on 2011-03-03T22:31:42-06:00

Well seeing as 4.1 is still a few months off....

To be honest I doubt it. I'd give it a month and a half tops, considering PTR is up.

The article says that patch 4.1 is two months away but the PTR for patch 4.2 will be released very soon after the release of patch 4.1 in live. Seeing that they want to have big patch of content in PTR for at least 6 weeks it means that 4.2 is more or less 3 months away.